Bruce Lee: Sifu, Friend and Big Brother. Doug Palmer

      Practice in Blue Cross Parking Garage, Seattle, circa late 1961/early 1962 Courtesy of David Tadman

      I believe the basement in Chinatown was when he started calling his school the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute (Jun Fan being his given name in Chinese).

      ENDNOTES

      39 LeRoy says he taught Bruce how to shoot with a .357 pistol, and later gave him a .25 automatic. See also Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 66; Bax, Number One, p. 36; and Bax, Disciples, interview with Skip Ellsworth, p. 53.

      40 Little, Letters of the Dragon, May 1961 letter to Ed Hart, p. 28.

      41 Later, I found out that Jesse grew up in Seattle but moved to California when he was fifteen, before he joined the Air Force and moved back to Seattle after his discharge. Glover, Bruce Lee, pp. 6-7. LeRoy Garcia told me recently that Jesse was indeed exposed to Chicano gang culture in East L.A., becoming a “gang-banger” for a while.

      42 Qu is the pinyin spelling for ch’i(literally “air” or “breath,” but as a Taoist concept referring to the energy flow or life force)—the spelling using the Wade-Giles romanization system for Mandarin that was wide-spread throughout most of the 20th century. Many of the spellings usually seen for common Mandarin words still use that system—such as kung fu and t’ai chi (rendered gongfu and tai ji, respectively, in pinyin). Generally, if not otherwise specified, I have used the pinyin spelling for Mandarin words, but I am not always consistent. If the word is more familiar to Western readers using the Wade-Giles spelling—e.g., t’ai chi (rather than tai ji)—I sometimes use that.

      43 Linda confirms that he didn’t practice the breathing meditation that was taught in class much himself. In her words, he was more into “meditation in action.” But he did quiet time with himself “just fine,” reading and thinking about what he had read or observed or planned to do.

      44 According to Jesse, when he first tried to develop a focused kick, Bruce found he couldn’t touch his head to his knees. It took him a couple of months of stretching to be able to do so. Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 58.

      45 Jesse Glover has written that at one point Bruce bulked up to over 160 pounds, but then took it off because the extra weight slowed him down. Bax, Number One, p. 176. Jesse called things exactly as he saw them, so his words hold a lot of credibility in my book, but I’ve never heard of that elsewhere and never saw Bruce at that weight myself. Linda says he was never that heavy, and that even 145 (his maximum weight per another source) would be a “stretch.” A chart he kept after he started weight training, depicted in Linda’s The Bruce Lee Story, p. 71, shows him at 140 pounds in May and July of 1965.

      46 According to Jesse Glover, Bruce began applying more forward pressure when working out with him and other larger Americans, and also added more modifications to penetrate the chi sau of > the senior students in Hong Kong whose abilities in that regard were still superior to his when he left Hong Kong. Bax, Number One, pp. 186-187. However, a story told by Jesse suggests that the roots of Bruce’s deviation from classical chi sau was from an incident before he left Hong Kong. Apparently Bruce practiced his own version of isometric exercises, pressing his palm up against the underside of his desk while in class, simulating one of the Wing Chun hand positions. One time his hand slipped out from the edge of the desk and flew forward, leading Bruce to think that correctly applied forward pressure could be used to his advantage in chi sau. Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 27.

      47 Bruce had moved beyond chi sau, partly because he found that it was ineffective against much larger opponents, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Instead, he developed himself to the point that he could close the gap and strike cleanly without making contact with the opponent’s hands or arms. Bax, Number One, p. 187, and Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 34.

      48 I have rendered particular Chinese names as they usually appear in articles and books, rather than using a consistent word-order. In Chinese, the surname comes first, as in the case of Wong Jack Man (Wong Jak Man), “Wong” being the surname. In the case of Gin Foon Mark (Mak Gin Fun), however, his surname (“Mark”) generally appears last in the articles and books I have seen, using the Western convention, so I follow the same convention when referring to him.